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NICHOLAS I (NIKOLAI PAVLOVICH) EMPEROR OF ALL RUSSIA 1825-1855
Nicholas I was born on May 25, 1796, in Gatchina near St.
Petersburg, the third son of Emperor Paul I. Not considered
likely to succeed to the throne, he received an education in
military engineering. In the 1820s, he held the post of
inspector general of the army's engineers. He also became
Commander of the First Guards Division.
Nicholas I came to throne after the death of his older brother
Alexander I and the refusal of the second brother, Grand Duke
Constantine, to accept sovereignty. His first measure as Emperor
was the execution of the participants in the uprising of
December 14, 1825. He was crowned on August 22, 1826, in the
Dormition Cathedral of the Moscow Kremlin. His reign saw the
flourishing of absolute monarchy in military and civil areas. He
strengthened and centralized bureaucratic structures to an
unprecedented degree. Harsh and despotic by nature, he had
little time for abstract ideas. Any sign of liberalism in Russia
was brutally suppressed.
The principal issue in foreign policy was the "Eastern
Question," maintaining pro-Russian regimes in the Black Sea
Straits. Nicholas attempted to resolve this by the partition of
the Ottoman Empire. The result was the Crimean War of 1853-56,
in which Russia suffered a bitter defeat at the hands of a
coalition of Western European states and Turkey. He married
Frederica Louisa Charlotta Wilhelmina (Alexandra Feodorovna),
daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, and had seven
children.
Nicholas died on February 18, 1855. Many researchers believe he
poisoned himself after receiving news of the defeat of Russian
forces at Evpatoria. He was buried in the Cathedral of the St.
Peter and St. Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
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